Fatemeh Aman is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who has worked as a journalist and analyst for over 20 years.
The compulsory hijab law is exactly as it was, but the public mood has changed noticeably, she says.
She says it is remarkable how Iranian women continue to carve out breathing space despite the regime’s pressure.
As recently as two days ago, women were walking around Tehran unveiled. The sight of a woman without her hijab would have once called for strict action by the country’s infamous moral police. However, on December 7, women even ran a marathon, many of them without the mandatory hijab. While many women have reported that this is like a “breather”, the fragile nature of Iran’s rollback on moral policing is evident from the fact that the organisers of the aforementioned marathon were arrested a day later.
Since the 12-day war, Iran has simultaneously relaxed its moral policing and increased arrests, summary trials and executions. Fatemeh Aman is a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who has worked as a journalist and analyst for over 20 years. She spoke with Outlook’s Senior Associate Editor Avantika Mehta on the recent cultural shift and increased use of summary trials and executions in Iran.
1. Since the 12-day war ended, what concrete changes—if any—have you observed in the way morality police operate in public spaces?
The compulsory hijab law is exactly as it was, but the public mood has changed noticeably. In Tehran, Shiraz, even parts of Mashhad, it is common to see women walking without a headscarf as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. What strikes me is the confidence. People are not whispering about it or testing the limits quietly. They are simply living. The state is clearly aware of this shift. The morality police still appear, but not in the old rhythm. They might show up for a day or two, make a point, then vanish again. It gives the impression that they are present but not dominant, and that is new. The result is a sort of uneasy coexistence. The law is there. The disobedience is also there. And the state seems unsure how hard to push because it knows the street has changed more quickly than the system has.
2. Do you see this as a structural shift in state policy, or a temporary tactical retreat in the aftermath of conflict? What makes you think so?
It feels very temporary. Nothing formal has changed, and nothing in the state’s language suggests that it intends to rethink the policy. Iran has a long history of pulling back at moments of vulnerability and returning to its usual course once the situation stabilises. This moment fits that pattern almost exactly. The state is watching and waiting, not reconsidering.
3. To what extent do you think wartime pressures—economic strain, public anger, or fear of unrest—have influenced the regime’s approach to moral enforcement?
These pressures are at the heart of it. Iran is living through a period of strain that people feel in the smallest parts of daily life, whether it is the price of groceries or the uncertainty in the political atmosphere. In such a moment, a heavy-handed hijab crackdown would be explosive. The leadership knows this. When the Israeli attacks happened, they created an atmosphere of fear and confusion, and the state used that moment to justify tightening control behind the scenes. It did not want dramatic public confrontations while tensions were already high. So, what looks like relaxation is actually the state moving pieces around. It reduces the chance of a spark on the street, while increasing pressure in areas that do not attract as much attention. It is a redistribution of force, not a reduction of it.
4. Iran has often calibrated repression through women’s bodies. What does this moment reveal about the state’s larger political anxieties?
This moment tells us that the state is uneasy about the depth of social change it is confronting. Iranian women have become one of the most educated populations in the region. They excel in fields that were once closed to them. They have carved out space in sports, culture, and public life, and these gains have changed expectations in ways the political system never prepared for. And then there is Gen Z. You feel their presence everywhere. They are quick, informed, and far less intimidated than older generations were. They have grown up with access to the world, and because of that, the state cannot easily set the boundaries of their imagination. This combination, educated women and a fearless younger generation, creates a cultural landscape that is shifting underneath the system. The hesitation on hijab is really a sign of the state’s uncertainty about how to deal with this much change at once.
5. How are women and queer communities interpreting this change—are they experiencing real breathing space, or just a different form of surveillance?
Women describe it as a breathing space that feels surprising and a little fragile. They move through some areas with more ease than before. You can see it in cafes and parks, where people sit a bit more calmly, a bit less guarded. Still, there is an awareness that it can all change in a moment. Cameras are everywhere. Digital fines arrive without warning. Workplaces continue to enforce their own rules. The freedom is real but conditional, and everyone knows it. For queer communities, the picture is different. Their danger is not tied to the direct presence of the morality police. It comes from laws, from social exposure, from the constant risk of being identified. The street atmosphere may feel slightly softer, but their daily calculation of risk remains heavy.
6. In your view, what would determine whether this ‘relaxation’ solidifies into reform or snaps back into repression, and what should journalists be watching most closely?
The only thing that would turn this into real reform is legal change, and we are nowhere near that. As long as the law stays as it is, the state has the option to tighten enforcement with very little warning. Internal politics will also play a large role. If the succession issue becomes tense, or if security institutions feel they are losing their grip, a harder line is almost inevitable. For journalists, the most reliable indicators lie outside the capital. Provincial court rulings, enforcement patterns in smaller towns, and the spread of digital monitoring systems show where the state’s priorities truly are. Tehran can be misleading, because the state often uses the capital to manage optics rather than reveal policy.
7. Executions and political arrests have increased since the Woman Life Freedom movement and even more since the 12-day war. How do you interpret this contrast between softer hijab enforcement and harsher repression elsewhere
The contrast is deliberate. On the street, the state faces a level of resistance that would be politically dangerous to challenge head on. It knows that a forceful hijab campaign could spark something much larger, and possibly much more enduring. So it steps back where its control is weakest. In institutions that it fully controls, the situation is different. Courts move quickly. Sentences become harsher. Executions rise. These are arenas where the state encounters almost no pushback, and it uses them to project power at a moment when it feels vulnerable. The Israeli attacks provided a narrative for framing this internal crackdown as a security necessity, though the people who bear the cost are ordinary Iranians, not the political elite. What is remarkable is that women continue to carve out breathing space despite this pressure. By refusing compulsory hijab in such large numbers, they have shifted the boundary of public behaviour in a way the state cannot easily reverse. It does not mean they are free, but it does mean that something fundamental in public life has begun to move.
